


Where angels soar

by Evergreene



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alec has wings, Angst, Hurt Alec Lightwood, Immortal Alec Lightwood, M/M, Malec, Show level violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:07:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24927433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evergreene/pseuds/Evergreene
Summary: ‘No,’ he whispers. ‘Oh no.’ And staggering to his feet, Magnus stumbles forward, forgetting the creatures, forgetting everything, unable to tear his eyes from the terrible sight before him as he takes in the great, folded wings that have torn free from Alec’s back.
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Comments: 21
Kudos: 268
Collections: Hunter's Moon Fic Recs





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted to write an 'Alec with wings' fic for ages and this happened. Thanks to a massive case of writer's block I had with it, it's very well travelled as I've somehow managed to write bits in three different countries. As only my second Shadowhunters fic, thoughts are especially welcome, and it's complete so should be posted over a few days. :)

Lifting his head, Alec braces it against the crook of his arm with its ink-dark runes. ‘You won’t kill me,’ he rasps into the darkness. 

A flutter of laughter sounds from behind him. ‘So confident, angel-child.’ 

He twists against the ropes, bloodied wrists wrung slick and raw, shoulders aching from the weight of his body. ‘I’m confident you’re going to die.’ 

Another of the creatures hums, ice-cold fingers spidering soft and biting against his ribs. ‘Immortality often stands in the way of such dreams...' 

‘As we’re sure the warlock has told you,’ finishes the last of them, its silver-chime voice slipping insidious against his ear, refracting off the mildewed walls. 

Summoning his strength, he fights past the hitch in his breath, chest drawn immeasurably tight after an age – longer – spent hanging from his wrists. ‘Immortal doesn’t mean immune to a blade through the heart,' he gets out, and a hiss of laughter, sibilant and mocking, echoes around the abandoned cavern.

‘Careful, angel-child,’ comes the croon, but he ignores it, allows a blood-slick smile to stretch his face.

‘You’re not going to kill me. You need me alive.’ A cough rasps through him, harsh and juddering, but he forces out the rest of his words. ‘He won’t come, you know. Magnus is smart. He’ll know it’s a trap.’

Frigid air curls round him as the first of the creatures presses close, its long, thin nails scratching, claw-like, against the fragile skin of his throat. ‘The warlock gives his heart so freely,’ comes its murmur. 

‘So much easier to rip it out,’ the second of them agrees. 

‘The warlock Bane will know it’s a trap,’ finishes the last. ‘And he will come...’ 

‘And he will bleed...’ 

‘And at last...’ 

'-at last...’ 

Their voices chime. 

‘…at last, we shall live once more amongst the angels.’ 


	2. Chapter 2

Blue flames crackle viciously in the palm of Magnus' hand as he stalks along the disused sewer, knee-length coat billowing out behind him and steel-toed boots snapping sharply on the dampened ground. Around him, the air hangs damp and vile. Its brackish, stagnant stench is an affront to every sense, but the disjointed drip, drip, drip of fouled water is worse, beating a maddening staccato upon the nearby stones in counterpoint to the words circling endlessly throughout his head – _I’m too late, too late, I’m too late_.

A quick glance behind him reveals the flickering light of his magic as it catches vividly on the brilliant red of Clary’s hair, setting it aglow, then glints and gleams off of Jace's seraph blade and the silver whip coiled sharp and sinuous about Isabelle’s wrist. The three Shadowhunters are like wraiths at his back, near melding with the dark and swiftly soundless for all their speed, but still his neck prickles at their presence. They were there against his will, he had _warned_ them stay away, to obey the instructions in the commanding missive he had received. But they had ignored him and now, now he would have to act. 

Between one step and the next, a sharp twist of his wrist sends a burst of azure flame erupting upwards from the ground. Blindingly high, it surges into a huge sheet, cutting their current passageway in half - leaving him on one side, the Shadowhunters on the other. A flick of his fingers fastens it there, pinned against the sewer walls, and, done, he turns to face his companions, who have all three surged forward only to be brought to a halt by the sparkling wall now rising tall before them. 

'I’m sorry,' he says, raising his voice to be heard over the hiss and lick of the glittering flames. 'But they said to come alone.’ 

And he is sorry, sorry to have to leave them behind, sorry they will have no control over the fate of one both brother and friend. But he will take no chances, he will not risk _Alec_ , so he turns from them without guilt in his heart, letting their furious shouts ebb away as they charge forward, then fall back, unable to pass through his magic.

Alone, he strides onwards. The darkness of the sewers grows steadily with every step and soon his mind begins to play tricks. Every shadow becomes a demon, every sheen off a puddle a portal to hell. _Drums, drums, drums in the deep_ *, he recites to himself, half-imagining he can hear their rhythmic pounding, then he pushes the fool thought aside and instead focuses on growing his meagre handful of magic, which has begun to stutter and dwindle along with his nerves. A brief moment of concentration soon has it crackling, pulsating again with a wild blue light, and swiftly he moves forward once more, passing further and farther underneath New York City. 

With every twisting staircase he descends, every passageway entered, the architecture around him grows older, archaic. The ceilings sprout elaborate, moss-covered carvings that twine along the endless corridors, narrow alcoves give way to spectacular rooms, and soon he begins to glimpse ruinous archways, one after another, rising high into the dark before sinking away, both monument and predecessor to the modern city that rumbles hundreds of feet above. 

Eventually, all sound fades. What scant light there is leeches away, his ball of magic flickers, flits, goes out, and finally he is left standing, alone in the dark. The blackness is pervasive as it presses upon his skin and for a moment his stomach lurches, churning at the unwelcome thought that he has come the wrong way. But it is then, abruptly, he hears it - a faint, eerie lament unravelling out of the dark. 

He remembers the sound from his childhood, from nights spent in his father’s realm, back when he was a boy, unable to control where his mind went in sleep as his father pressed and clawed away at his dreams. He had pushed back then, had fought away the dread images conjured, but there is no such escape now, not if he is to save Alec, and so he waits as the music surges, rising to a lilting crescendo before washing away to reveal a vast, rocky cavern, limned at the edges by a faint phosphorescence and housing three beings of Edom. 

‘ _Warlock_ ,’ comes their hiss. 

They are creatures, _things_ , of flesh and blood and mist and bone, with silver-chime voices and thistle-weed hair, too many bones in their fingers and faces too long for those of men. They are horrors made of ill-will and ruin, nightmares come to life, and for a moment it is a battle not to turn and run. Yet, looking beyond them, to the far end of the cavern, his gaze lights on a figure – bruised and bound and bloodied, hanging from chains strung down from the roof - and knows he has found who he came for. 

_‘_ Alexander,’ he murmurs. Lifting an unconscious hand towards him, he starts across the floor, but at that moment the creatures strike.

Absorbing their power with a blast of his own, Magnus throws out his hands, casting a tide of magic that sends the creatures screaming. Not yet satisfied, he forces the spell onwards, and it seethes across the ground until finally it erupts, cocooning Alec in a protective blue shield that beats and pulses with a resounding light. 

It holds for the briefest of seconds before shattering. His magic is wrenched upwards, stolen out from under his grip and torn away to the very height of the cavernous roof. There, it starts to swirl and eddy, lighting the scene with a nightmarish hue as the three creatures start to swarm about, sharks prowling in a plunging blue ocean. 

'You thought it was so easy?' demands the first of them, its straggling white hair snapping, banner-like, in the newly violent wind that has sprung up about the cavern. 

_'Tricks_!’ accuses the second. Darting in close, its gnarled hands snatch at the flapping edges of his plum-coloured coat before sliding off as it writhes away. 'Always _tricks_! You and your father, alike in all things.’ 

‘Asmodeus is nothing to me,’ Magnus snaps, having dealt too often with his father’s acquaintances to think it will serve him to claim a connection. Calling upon his magic, he lets loose another spell, only to have to abandon it when the last of the creatures lunges at him, leaving a bone-deep chill where its reaching fingers blister. 

‘Your father,’ it hisses in his ear as it sweeps past, ‘is _all_.’ 

Launching a bristling ball of magic, he is forced to leap aside as the creatures turn it back on him, splinters of black rock crashing to the ground as it collides with the wall to his rear. ‘Tell me what you want,’ he demands, panting, steadying his stance as he regains his feet. Lifting up his hands, he allows his power to start to singe and burn, orange fire now glinting off the many silver rings lacing his slim fingers. ‘I came as you ordered, now let Alec go.’

A cackle echoes throughout the cavern, bouncing off the mildewed walls. ‘What we want?’ croons the first of the creatures in its lyrical voice. ‘Your father took our wings...’ 

‘He trapped us-’ 

‘Doomed us-’ 

‘Felled us-’ 

‘Took all that we were, and all we were meant to be.’ 

‘That’s no fault of mine,’ Magnus interjects, but the creatures simply continue their glide about the cavern, the circling magic groaning high in its whirlpool as the wind continues to swirl. 

‘We want what was taken...’ 

'So we can be what we were...’ 

‘A spell of completion-’ 

‘-that is our wish.’ 

Horror overtakes Magnus as understanding dawns. 'You cannot mean-' he starts through a throat caught tight, but again it is as though he has not spoken. 

‘It is in your power, Warlock...’ 

'So do as we wish...’ 

‘...or watch the angel-child die!’ 

Chancing a glance at Alec, Magnus realises the pool of magic on the roof has swollen. The diaphanous light is now bright enough that he can make him out clearly, and fury thrums electric through his body as he sees the blood that coats one side of the pale face, the purpling bruises on his bare ribs, the way his blackened, scabbed feet have been left to stretch and hang just above the ground. 

He needs to get him out. 

Whipping his magic into a blistering-tight chain, he lashes it towards the creatures, yet in a blink it is gone, having splintered off in a thousand different directions, leaving nothing but the barest trace of the spell hovering in the air. 

‘Fool!’ comes an answering shriek, and Magnus’s heart plummets as the creatures vanish, reappearing a moment later amassed around Alec. 

‘See what you have done!’ cries the first of them. Its long, thin hand wraps around the back of Alec’s neck and Magnus sees Alec jolt awake as though electrocuted, a hoarse, broken cry emerging as he arches his back in an instinctive struggle to get away.

‘Stop!’ Magnus shouts, but the second creature has already sunken its clawed fingers deep into Alec’s side, delivering an oozing set of wounds that start to seep and swell with blood. 

‘Alexander!’ Fear thrumming like a hypertension beneath his skin, he releases bolt after bolt of power, but every last one of them is knocked carelessly away as the last of the creatures begins to rake its nails slowly across Alec’s bare chest, scoring ruby-red furrows that immediately start to bleed. 

Magnus’s cry is an echo of Alec’s this time, his heart feels as though it is being torn in two. ‘Stop this!’ he shouts desperately, panic overtaking him as another crackling blast of his magic has no effect. ‘Please!’ His voice breaks as he does. ‘Let him go and I’ll do what you ask!’

At once, the creatures turn on him, leaving Alec panting raggedly in his chains as blood runs glistening down his chest and side, pooling in the waistband of his tattered black jeans. 

‘You swear?’ hisses the first of them, its sunken black eyes gleaming as it loosens its clawed hand from the back of Alec’s neck. 

Magnus shuts his minds to the potential consequences of having the three creatures whole again. He can take care of them later, once Alec is safely away - Caterina will be able to help him, maybe Tessa if he can find her. ‘I swear.’

‘First the spell!’ demands the creature. 

‘Do it now, do it here…’ 

‘And then you will have back your heart.’ 

Magnus’s thoughts fracture, a hundred at once all fighting for attention as he plays back the creatures’ words. He knows the magnitude of such a spell, the amount of power that will be unleashed in restoring these creatures to their true form. Anything within the cavern will be at risk.

He tries to bargain. ‘If I enact that spell,’ he starts, ‘with Alexander here-’ He pauses mid-sentence as his mind stumbles over what could happen, the potential repercussions. ‘Magic such as this, there’s no telling what it will do. Let Alec go, let me send him back to his people, and I give you my word I'll return what my father stole from you.’

'Words are nothing-' 

'Words are what your father gave us-’ 

‘ _Oath-breaker!’_

Opening his mouth to argue, Magnus freezes as the creature closest to Alec seizes a fistful of his dark hair, wrenching back his head. The long nails on its other hand curve out, glinting in the whirling, phosphorescent light still razing the cavern as it raises them slowly to Alec’s bared neck. 

‘You will cast, Warlock...’ 

He shakes his head in denial. ‘I _can’t_.’ 

‘Then watch the angel-child die!’ 

‘No!’ 

‘Magnus-’ 

Magnus stills. Beneath the circling pool of power, the ravaging wind, Alec's voice cuts across the cavern – hoarse and pained, but as solid and sure as always. 'Magnus, it’s ok.’ 

‘No. Alexander, _no_.’ Agonised, Magnus shakes his head again, wanting, _needing,_ Alec to understand. 'Please, you don’t know what this will do to you. _I don’t know_.’ 

Claws flash silver and Alec chokes, a line of scarlet appearing along his throat. 

‘No!’ Magnus cries. Thinking desperately for a way out, he remembers the Shadowhunters he had trapped, and frantically he releases the spell binding the wall of magic in the sewer, hoping futilely that they had already found another way round.

Focusing back on the creatures, he tries to buy more time. ‘You can’t ask me to do this-’ 

The creatures hiss. ‘It is now or he dies!’ 

Heart tearing, knowing he has no other option, Magnus forces himself to concentrate, to seek the strength and skill that has so far borne him through all the endless years of his life. No one else was around, no allies were coming to the rescue. He had seen to that himself. So he makes himself steady. Gets a hold on his magic, delves down into it, brings it up so it hums and crackles about him.

‘Magnus,’ Alec rasps as the claws at his neck slice deeper. ‘Magnus, I’m not scared of you.’

Magnus makes himself look up, lets his glamour drop so he stands cat-eyed in the dark. ‘You should be,’ he says finally, hollowly.

And he casts.

\---------------------

For a moment, there is stillness, like the world itself is holding its breath, waiting to see the outcome of the magic he has wrought. Then there is a roaring, rushing, heaving sound, a burning, biting, bellowing and a fast wind blasts across the cavern, gone before it is felt. 

It is then the explosion hits and it is as though it is inside of him. He is robbed of speech and light and sight and sound and half of him is being rent apart as the magic pours forth from between his hands. 

He hears a scream, a primal, awful thing that chills him to his bones, sees a burst of harsh, angelic light, then silence falls and all he knows is darkness. 

\---------------------

It takes minutes, hours, time beyond imagining, but Magnus slowly forces open dry, gritty eyes to a scene of devastation. 

The cavern looks as though it has been ravaged. The whirlpool of magic is gone but vast parts of the ceiling are down and a giant crack runs through it, leaving a deep, jagged scar in the rock that ebbs and bleeds with a strange blackness. The floor is coated in rubble and grime and glimmering specks of magic dance in the air, casting an ethereal haze across the scene. Everything has a slight hum, a barely there vibration, which ebbs in his bones, his very skin. 

Spitting out the bitter taste of filth and mildew, he forces himself up to his elbows, joints aching like he has aged a thousand years. He feels as though he has walked through a fire, like he has been set alight from within, and the splashes of white heat that keep appearing in his vision give credence. Gathering himself up to his knees, he blinks blearily through the dust, feeling the ground gritty and sharp beneath him, littered with the needling remains of blown-apart rocks, and finally, concentrating, he manages to swipe the sleeve of his coat over his eyes, clearing them enough to look around at the destruction he has caused. 

The first thing he sees is Alec. 

‘No,’ he whispers. ‘Oh no.’ And staggering to his feet, he stumbles forward, forgetting the creatures, forgetting everything, unable to tear his eyes from the beautiful, terrible sight before him as he takes in the great, folded wings that have torn free from Alec’s back. 

Heedless of the three creatures that lie splayed limply across the ground, of the arrival of Jace and Isabelle and Clary as they spill into the cavern with a dozen other Shadowhunters at their backs, he drops to his knees before Alec. Around him, the new-formed creatures are cut down even as they start to rise, dying with screams underneath glowing seraph blades, their unused wings butchered before they can even reach flight, but he remains ignorant of it all as he stares at the body shuddering before him. 

‘Alexander?’ he says hesitantly, reaching out with unsteady fingers, his silver rings catching in the glittering aftermath of the spell as it slowly begins to fade from the air, sinking gradually into the ground. His voice catches roughly, and he tries again, forcing the words through a throat gone numb. 

‘Alexander, it’s me. It’s me, it’s just me, let me help-’ 

_‘Don’t.’_

The word rasps out from a throat torn from screaming and Magnus freezes, then jerks back his hands, terrified, as beneath him Alec flinches, broad shoulders curving inwards, breaths coming wretched and trembling as the great ebony wings erupting from just between his shoulder blades shift heavily, trailing over his back to spill like ink onto the filth-covered ground. 

Magnus reaches out again and again jerks back his hand as Alec twitches away, a wordless sound escaping him as he huddles in tighter over himself, drawing into a ball before beginning to keen. 

‘Alright.’ Reaching for a semblance of control, Magnus forces himself to sit back, raises his hands in surrender, does his best to ignore their trembling as well as the blood coating Alec’s back, slicking the feathered wings. ‘I- I won’t touch you, Alexander, I promise. Just- the others are here too. Let them help.’ 

It takes a moment, but Alec nods, the slightest incline of his head, and Magnus forces himself to his feet, stumbling back a few steps before he is caught by a narrow hand on the curve of his back. Glancing to his left, he finds Isabelle beside him, her dark eyes unreadable as she stares down at her brother still hunched on his knees, fists clenched so tightly in his palms that blood is trickling between his fingers. 

He opens his mouth to speak, but there is nothing he can say so he closes it again. Clary appears, pale face streaked with a mixture of sweat and demon blood, then Jace is there, face stark white and every movement brittle, and all Magnus can see are the tear tracks on his cheeks as he crouches down beside his parabatai and seizes Alec’s hand, heedless of the blood, his grip rigid and immovable. 

Beneath all their gazes, Alec shudders but allows the touch, and Magnus turns away. 

*Adapted from _The Fellowship of the Ring_ by J. R. R. Tolkein. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter shoud be up in a few days. Thoughts are welcome and I hope you enjoyed the read!


	3. Chapter 3

They go to the Institute, because that is where the Nephilim reside and the Nephilim, Magnus tells himself, will know how to help someone who has angel wings sprouting out of his back. 

His mind stalls at the sheer ridiculousness of the thought and he stops in the middle of the entry hall, letting Jace and Isabelle sweep Alec away towards the medic’s wing, their shoulders propped underneath his arms and the bloodied, straggling things that are his wings trailing limply in their wake. He supposes that Alec doesn’t have the muscles in his back to support them yet, and it is that, that simple, rational thought, that is finally his undoing. 

Staggering back, his heels hit the base of one of the knee-height altar benches that line the corridors and he sinks down upon it, staring blankly at the opposing wall. The brickwork is plain apart from a long deep scratch that mars the off-white surface, and he wonders if it is a forgotten scar from the battle that had taken place within these walls following Hodges' betrayal. The thought strikes him randomly and he dismisses it with just as little care, mind already searching out another distracting tangent, but he is unable to keep hold of that one either. 

Instead, he lets his mind go blank and it is not long before his gaze drifts down to his hands, curled limply in his lap. He stares at them, fingers still tingling from the wrath of magic they had expelled, and it takes him a few seconds to notice his rings flashing silver, catching in the harsh lights of the Institute, just as they had gleamed under the flare of his magic back in the cavern. 

He wants them gone. 

It is a sudden, maddening, irrational thought but it consumes him, and abruptly he starts tugging at the rings, careless of his torn skin as he wrenches them off over his knuckles, casting them down onto the bench, some of them clattering and clinging from there onto the floor, striking the black and white marble and bouncing off, clinking. He knows people are staring at him, that there is a Shadowhunter nearby dressed all in black speaking into a radio fastened to his shoulder, but he does not care, fixated on ridding himself of the reminder of what he has done, of the destruction he has wrought upon the man whom he loves. 

‘Magnus?’ 

There is a soft touch upon his shoulder and he turns his head to see Clary sitting beside him, eyes soft and brown and full of sympathy when there is no one who deserves it less. 

His voice fails. 

_I did this to him_ he wants to say to her. 

_This is my fault._

_He’ll never want to see me again_ says another part of him, that ugly, selfish part he does his best not to let anyone see, that he wrestles back and locks away so it is not visible to the people he cares for. 

But he finds himself unable to say a word and so he simply looks at her, silent, until she reaches out her small, slim hand for his bare one, so much lighter without the familiar weight of his rings. 

‘Alec needs you,’ she says simply. 

He stares at her smooth, white palm for a moment, at the drying blood crusted under her fingernails from where she had desperately, futilely, etched healing rune after useless healing rune over Alec's ruined back. 

He gets to his feet. 

‘I can’t be here,’ he says to her, and knows he will be forever grateful that she lets him walk away, leaving the rings scattered behind him on the Institute’s floor, gleaming softly in the low, angelic light. 

\-------------------- 

It takes him a day before he returns. 

No one stops him as he enters the Institute, half-expecting to be clapped in irons and charged with crimes he cannot help but name - the words running through his head as though on repeat. Cowardice, assuredly. Betrayal, another. Grievous bodily harm, he thinks is a good one, as his mind replays the way the wings must have ripped themselves free of Alec’s back, heedless of skin and bone and sinew. 

He is left alone though, and it is without direction that his feet seek out the familiar path to the medic's wing, winding through the stone-walled corridors, past mullioned windows of multi-hued glass, past serene-faced statues and shining caches of blades and arrowheads, displayed in cases like the most precious of jewels. He has followed the same route countless times, summoned to the Institute to treat some ill or another – a demon bite here, a bloody wound there, a poison the Clave’s own medics had failed to heal. But never had he felt the same sick wrench of fear as he does now when approaching the central sickbay, where the low murmur of hushed voices speak of a solemn, subdued evening. 

It is a simple thing to tell which room is Alec’s. Armed guards stand outside an oak-and-iron door laid deep in its gothic-style arch, each bearing a seraph blade as they skewer the corridor with hard and steely eyes. It was _their_ leader who had fallen, their commander who had been thefted away by Edom’s creatures, and their grim faces are unforgiving as they scan for further threats. 

Seeing them, Magnus falters. He does not want to provoke an argument, does not think he could handle it if one starts, so instead he settles into a neat alcove two dozen feet away to watch the Institute’s medics as they bustle in and out, conferring in muttered voices as they bear away bloodied bandages, only to return with new ones. 

Glamouring himself, he melts against the wall and waits. 

\--------------------- 

Night falls. 

Alec’s family have left, exiting the room looking shrunken and worn, sharing sombre looks as they pull the door closed behind them. Maryse's hand had been on her youngest son’s shoulder as she guided him away, and Max himself had been pale, his childish brow furrowed under the thick shock of hair so similar to his brother’s. He had gone where his mother led him for once, unprotesting and looking much more like the child he was than Magnus had seen for a long time. 

Isabelle and Jace had been the last to leave, and they had had the shortest journey as well, collapsing onto a worn couch positioned just outside Alec’s door. Draped with plush cushions and blankets, its rumpled state had told Magnus this was not the first time someone had rested there and he had been glad – relieved that Alec had had someone watching out for him as he had hidden himself away. 

He waits silently as the medics leave for the night, then as Jace and Isabelle settle down, waving away the guards. They murmur between themselves for a long while, clearly intending to keep watch, but it is Jace who gives in to an exhausted sleep first, his blond head sinking down heavily onto Isabelle’s capable shoulder. Magnus waits until she has dropped off as well, pale arms wrapped around a plump, tasselled cushion, before he carefully steps forward and passes his hand over the wooden door, ever so gently. The room hidden behind it is revealed at once, and the act takes him back to another evening, not all that long ago, when he had watched an injured Alec tend carefully to his wounds. 

This time, the scene inside is different. 

The small, private room is lit only by the soft yellow glow of a single lamp positioned innocuously in the corner. Its light reveals Alec curled on his side in the lone bed. His face is turned towards the wall and a clinically white sheet is pulled up as far as his hips, leaving bare a pale stretch of skin etched with still-healing scratches – the application of iratzes apparently having done much, but not all, to heal the damage left by the creature’s claws. Trailing across the mattress and onto the floor are the wings, _Alec’s_ wings, Magnus reminds himself - huge and black and ebony, great arching shapes that melt away into the dark. 

He watches for a while, and is debating whether or not to enter, whether he can face making his presence known, when the soft creak of a mattress signals a change. He had believed Alec asleep but instead he is uncurling, levering himself painfully up in the narrow bed until he is able to reach for a stele resting on the simple mahogany table to his right. 

Holding his breath, Magnus watches Alec silently sketch familiar shapes onto his skin – the marks for soundlessness, stealth and agility in turn. The new runes flare brightly before subsiding, and one minuscule part of Magnus relaxes as he sees Alec can still bear this part of his birthright. Done, Alec lets out a shallow grunt as he gets to his feet - swinging his legs out of the bed first, his wings trailing after as his face goes tight and rigid with pain. And then he is standing, wavering like a leaf in the wind, before dragging on some loose black pants from a chest at the foot of the bed and heading towards the door with stiff, painful steps as the wings, _his_ wings, trail along behind him. 

Jerking hurriedly back from the door, Magnus ends his spell and presses himself tightly against the wall, double-checking his glamour as he waits for Alec to emerge. The wooden door opens, closes, and Magnus waits as Alec pauses, his lips going thin and pale as he glances down at his sleeping siblings. He does not say a word however, just continues on past them, and Magnus trails silently behind as they make their through the low-lit Institute. 

Alec seems to be going out of his way to avoid company, for they take a roundabout route that, best as Magnus can tell, leads around the central rooms that would have been busy despite the late hour. Their pace is painstaking and slow, with Alec forced to stop several times, bending over with his hands clutched against his injured side or simply slumping against the wall, head lowered, when the pain appears to get too great. More than once, Magnus is tempted to step forwards, to help, but each time his courage fails. After what has happened, after what he has done, he is desperately unsure of his welcome, and is even less willing to test it when it could leave Alec wandering the halls of the Institute still injured and alone. 

They reach the main hall. Alec slips like a shadow along its side to the foot of a tall iron staircase which Magnus has never noticed, which spirals up in tight, narrow circles into the arching eaves of the Institute and beyond. Alec starts up it without hesitation, bracing himself using the slim metal railings twining round on either side, and Magnus gives him some time to get ahead before following, a soft twitch of his fingers bringing up a tiny wisp of magic to help him light his way. 

It is a long way up, but he soon finds he is able to keep track of Alec from the soft rasp of his breathing, and a new sound as well as his wings brush faintly against the edge of each stair. Careful to keep his own footsteps quiet, he follows Alec as they twine slowly upwards, and after a few minutes Alec is scaling the final few steps before pushing through an ancient-looking doorway then out into the crisp night air.

Magnus follows.

The door leads out onto a slim concourse that he presumes runs around the outer edge of the Institute’s roof. Alec has disappeared into the shadows, but after some searching Magnus finds him poised at the edge of a long narrow balcony, looking out over the parapet with his hands resting loosely against the waist-high stone wall. The night air is catching cooly at his hair, as well as the topmost feathers of his wings, riffling them like silver, but he can see that Alec is paying them no attention, instead staring out at the dark park beyond.

Knowing he cannot, _should_ not, put it off any longer, Magnus takes a moment to gather his courage, then drops his glamour with a twitch of his finger, somehow unsurprised when Alec shows no sign of being startled as he closes the last few steps between them. He does not draw away, so Magnus shifts carefully closer until they are within arm’s length of each other. Once there, he has to fight down his natural urge to reach for Alec. He has always been tactile, has depended on touch to see him through the endless years, but he makes himself pull back his instinctive hand and look up instead into a face that is pale and drawn and almost glowing in the moonlight. 

He waits for Alec to speak. 

‘Hey,’ Alec says finally. His eyes are glittering pools of darkness under the shock of thick hair that has fallen forward over his brow, casting a heavy shadow hiding whatever emotion is reflected there. His usually deep voice is threaded and raw and it is painful to hear, knowing that he was the cause of the screams wrenched from that throat, but Magnus forces himself to reply. 

‘Hello Alexander,' he says, knowing his own voice sounds close to breaking. 

Alec glances at him, all dark eyes and vulnerability, then turns away, gazing back out into the night, seemingly fixated on the thin pinpricks of light that make up the surrounding city. He does not speak again and for a while the only sound is that of the occasional police siren, along with the faraway screech of protesting tires on a bend, and the drifting thump and beat of music echoing from a late night celebration somewhere amidst the city. 

So much time passes that Magnus begins to wonder just how badly he has erred, coming here. He shifts uneasily, intending to retreat back to his silent, lonely loft where he can drown his guilt alone, but before he can take more than a step back, Alec’s voice cuts across his plans, hoarse and quiet for all its taut pain. 

‘Stay with me?’ 

Startled, Magnus draws in a breath. Wonders what has taken Alec to ask that of him. Knows that it does not matter, that he will stay, that he will always be there for this man who knows his crimes, who bears the penalty of them yet still seeks his company, whose heart, it seems, is perhaps big enough to forgive him the greatest wrong he has ever wrought.

‘Of- of course, Alexander,’ he says, finding his voice at last, tripping over the words in his haste. ‘I- Of course. Always.’

What he does not say is he is no longer sure how long _always_ will be for Alec, that he is certain right down to his bones of having felt that great surge of blistering angelic light at the very end of his spell, that there is no longer any guarantee that Alec will age and die alongside his family. Nor does he say he is fairly sure that Alec knows it too, and is pushing the knowledge down deep inside of him with everything he is. 

Nor does he give voice to the tiny, flickering ember of hope burning inside of him, the one yearning selfishly, despite his best efforts, that what has happened may mean he no longer has to spend the rest of eternity alone. 

Pushing that thought down, knowing he will never reveal it, he looks up at Alec, making himself meet those familiar, glittering eyes. And finally, _finally_ , the dam inside of him breaks and he allows the words to come that had been so hard to speak before. ‘I’m sorry,’ he chokes out, and he hopes, just hopes, that those words are the entire truth. 

‘ _Magnus_.’ 

The words are torn from a ruined throat. Alec is the one breaking now and without further thought Magnus reaches out, takes him into his arms, lets Alec fold down into him as though he can hide there from the world and all he must face once the soft glow of dawn breaks across the Institute’s roof. And as he clutches Alec tighter, feels his pulse fluttering, hummingbird fast, in his throat, he lets the grief and guilt and sorrow wash over him, and he makes a wish to anyone who may be listening that things may somehow be alright once more between them. 

‘Stay with me?’ comes the choked words again, Alec’s plea barely audible against his chest. 

Letting his hand trail across Alec’s back, Magnus feels it brush faintly against the edge of the newly-fledged wings. Alec shudders minutely under his grasp and he returns his hand at once to the nape of his neck, grasping at the fine, dark hairs there, soothing, stroking, caressing, and he presses Alec ever closer against his chest as though by doing so he can absolve himself of all the pain and fear and hurt and wrong and everything else he has caused. 

‘I’ll be here, Alexander,’ he whispers again, and finishes the thought inside his head. 

_Always._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading my angsty story and I'd love to know your thoughts.


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